LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 917, 2 June 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

VIOLET. A Story in Three Chapters. BY AUSTIN LESLIE. ( Concluded?) ' Oh, you plead for your new lover, do you, Letty ? Then he may go scot-free this once; but beware,' he added, as he released his hold on the throat and threw his enemy from him, ' beware how you again come withia my reach. A second time I won't spare you as I have done this. Go, sir, and flatter yourself that you have cured me of my folly of putting faith in woman. Come home, Letty.' He took her hand as if she had been a child, and led her, silent and unresisting, from the place; while Douglas Stuart, with muttered, groans and curses, picked himself up and slunk off across the fields. Not a word did George speak as he led the trembling girl homewards, but there was a sad wistful look in the usually bright eyes, and the mobile mouth was fixed, stern, and immovable, as if it had been carved out of stone. Poor Letty could not bear this dreadful silence, and before they reached the old farmhouse, where she had been born, and where she had lived all her days, she burst into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing. 'O George, speak to me?' she cried, as she threw her arms round his neck ; ' for God's sake, speak to me! 0 George, I've been very foolish, and—and I know I've done wrong. But you'll forgive me, won't you, George, this once? I'll never, never do it again as long as I live, if you'll only forgive me ! You'll forgive your own Letty, won't you, George ?' and she looked up to his sad stern face, her lustrous eyes dimmed with tears, and her whole aspect full of contrition.

Alas, poor George! He would have wished, as he looked at the beautiful face upturned to him, to clasp the girl he still loved—the only girl he had ever loved—madly to hia breast, and in the embrace forget all the folly and wickedness of which she had been guilty. But a stern sense of justice filled his heart; and moreover, although Letty had promised repentance, his faith in her had been rudely broken, and would never again be restored. So he gently unwound her arms from about his neck, and taking her hand again, with the words, ' Come, Letty,' he led her home. No lover's parting kiss was pressed on the yearning lips, but as they reached the farm he stopped, took a last long look at the sweet pleading face, imprinted a kiss upon the fair brow, and with the hurried words, 'God bless you, Letty ! Farewell !' he left her, and walked hastily away.

What a night of misery was that which Letty passed through! Lying awake in her little room, she thought morning would never come. She had lain on her sleepless pillow and sobbed until all her tears seemed to have been dried up, and her eyes were red and swollen with weeping. Would this dreary miserable night last for ever ? would dawn never come? It came at last, and Letty mse and went through her accustomed duties as one in a dream, taking no interest in anything she did. Oh, if she could but see George once more, and beg and pray for forgiveness ? He would grant it surely for the sake of their old love! They had been brought up together as children, and had gone to school together, and their long friendship had unconsciously ripened into love. And wae this golden chain to be broken at last, and the strong links that had been forging for so many years to be rudely snap red at once and for ever? 'Oh, no, not for ever!' poor Letty said to herself. 'He will forgive me this time, and we will be dearer to each other than ever after this sore trial.' She thought George would come over and see her that day, if only to bid her good-bye, if he was determined to break off their engagement ; but this she was sure he would never do—he loved her too well for that. But the day wore on into noon, and the sunlight faded from the earth, and the summer moon glowed in the pale-blue sky, yet he never came, and she could hear no word of him at the farm. Wearied, listless, and anxious, she was sitting by the kitchen fire at night, when one of the servant girls handed her a letter, which she had received from Mr Linn's shepherd-boy. It was addressed to Letty, and she knew the writing at once.

' He has not been able to get to see me, and has written to let me know,'

So thought Letty, and she went quickly to her own room, where she could read the letter without interruption. Her heart beat so that she could scarcely open it; and when her trembling lingers had broken the seal, she read the hurriedly-written, and sometimes nearly illegible, lines with flushed face and eager eyes, and then, with a sharp sudden cry as of one in pain, fell heavily «3 the ground. One of the servants passing her

chamber-door heard the fall, and entered, to see the fair young girl stretched upon the floor, with a letter crushed in her hand. This was the lettf r ;

' Dear Letty (I can't help writing in the old way even now) —After what passed last night all of course is over between you and me. I could never marry a woman in whom I could not put perfect trust, and you know if I could have done so with you. I could not stay here after this ; it would break my heart to see you and not to speak to you as of old, and that can never be. Ah, Letty, how I loved you ! how dearly you will never know.

' My father will give me the money that would have come to me, and I am going to Canada at once. By the time you get this letter I shall be on my way to Liverpool, and on Saturday I shall leave the old land for ever. I could not stay near you now ; and perhaps time and new scenes and hard work will soften the blow : but yet, Letty, we must part for ever Dou't grieve over this ; you were far too g<>< d for me, and I hope you will yet meet some one more worthy of you. Farewell! George.'

A sad wistful face—more beautiful in its tender softened grief than in the flush of youthful happiness -looks out at the cottage door as you pass the old f rm. It was a hard lesson that was read to Letty that moonlit eye, and she cannot see without a shudder the chestnut steed and its bandsome rider as they flash past in the morning light. And if ever Violet Graham marries as it is very likely she may, in spite of the past, for it would be a pity that one so good and fair should pass her life in single blessedness—the happy lover will find her tried and chastened heart tender and tme as the modest flowerets that grow in sweet seclusion beside the still waters, whose azure blooms are mirrored in the unrippled surface of the stream.